


Remember me for centuries

by AsukaX



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Family Feels, Gen, My First Work in This Fandom, Not Beta Read, Team as Family, and it shows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 21:21:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29425197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AsukaX/pseuds/AsukaX
Summary: "The cave is where Andy stores her treasures, and this is ours.”Nile discovers some of Joe and Nicky's presents to each other over the centuries, leading Nicky to tell her the story of what happened to the first few gifts they ever gave each other.
Relationships: Background Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Nile Freeman & Nicky | Nicolo di Genoa, background Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolo di Genova
Comments: 44
Kudos: 111
Collections: Centennial Celebration Collection





	Remember me for centuries

“Nicky, what’s this?”

Nicky paused in the middle of placing their recently bought groceries on the small shelves in the kitchen, and turned his head towards the sound of Nile’s voice. 

She was on her knees in front of one of the large wooden chests tucked against the wall of their safehouse in Bonn. The lid was open, curiosity obviously having gotten the better of her once again. The corners of Nicky’s lips quirked up in a smile.

Ever since ‘The Merrick Incident’ three months ago, one surprising development had been Nile’s eagerness to seek out any and all “historical treasures” (her exact words) hidden away in their various safehouses. 

Apparently her brief stay in their otherwise unremarkable cave hideout had convinced her that the team had made a habit of secreting away artifacts and art pieces across the centuries. The discovery of a few rejected sketches by Cézanne in their safehouse in Belgium last month had sent her into paroxysms of delight, not to mention Joe’s tale of how they had ended up with them.

And now Nile was looking at him with wide eyes, as if certain that she had found another treasure trove. Nicky felt his heart swell with affection for his new little sister.

“If it’s what I think it is, I will be happy to tell you the story.” He turned back to the groceries. “Just give me a few moments.”

He quickly put away the rest of their supplies, before making his way to the hall. It was just the two of them in the safehouse – in actual fact an abandoned farmhouse in the countryside – as Andy and Joe were out making more secure arrangements for the place in the future. 

Nile was still carefully examining the contents of the chest, which were a jumble of folded cloths, parchments, boxes and various items wrapped in newsprint or fabric. Her fingers were skimming reverentially over them, not daring to pick any of them up.

“This is actually my collection,” he said. “Well, mine and Joe’s really. It’s where I store some of the gifts he has given me.” Her head snapped up to him, then back down at the items. She lifted her hand away immediately.

“Oh, I’m sorry!” she gasped, looking horrified that she had opened something so personal. “I didn’t mean to touch – ”

He laughed, waving his hands reassuringly. “No, it’s fine, these have been moved around so much over the years, I don’t mind other people seeing them. In fact – ”

He knelt down beside her, reaching a hand in to draw out a small square box with a jeweled lid. Gently, he flipped the lid open to show Nile what was inside.

A beautiful broch, inlaid with a series of diamonds and sapphires, lay in its dark velvet bed. Nicky’s eyes softened as he looked at it, still as glittery and inviting as the last time he had worn it.

“This is from our time in Versailles,” he said fondly.

“Versailles? The Versailles?” Nile breathed out. “Wait, did you meet King Louis?”

Nicky flashed her a quick grin. “Which one?”

“Duh! The fancy one, obviously!” She grinned back. “So, which one was it?”

Nicky dropped his eyes back to the box. “I think this one was definitely during the reign of the 14th. The one they called the Sun King. But we didn’t exactly meet him. We just saw him from across the hall.”

“No way!”

“We did. Joe gave this to me to wear at court, as part of our disguise.” 

Nile’s jaw dropped in surprise, which caused Nicky to laugh.

“Oh, it was nothing all that exciting,” he said. “We were just there to collect some papers.”

He waited for Nile to ask him more questions, but she turned her head back to the trunk. “Are the rest of the things here from your time in Versailles as well?” she asked.

He looked down. It had been decades since he had last laid eyes upon them, but the memories came flooding back to him now.

“Not all of them,” he answered. “Most of these are just from the … what is it? 19th century onwards. The cave is where Andy stores her treasures, and this is ours.” 

“There must be a hundred things in here,” she said. “You each have a special place for your important stuff?”

“One on each continent,” he said, smiling. “Andy would keep her things in a safehouse as well, if there were not so many of them. A cave seemed the most logical choice.”

“There are storage units these days, you know. Like the ones on TV?”

He laughed again. “Maybe someday, once we have the time.”

She paused, looking back down at the chest. “So you keep all of his gifts?”

“All of them,” Nicky said. “Some of these are from me as well. Such as … wait.” He gently rummaged through the items, before picking out one palm-sized lump wrapped in newsprint.

He held it in one hand, unwrapping it gently to reveal what looked like a square ceramic pot, colored a faded white with intricately painted blue flowers on the sides, and a shallow hole in the center. “This is an inkwell I got him in England. When Queen Victoria was on the throne.”

He remembered that day vividly. Joe had been so delighted with his gift that he had immediately filled it and had written a poem for Nicky, which was probably somewhere in the chest as well, lovingly folded within one of the stacks of envelopes tied in silk ribbons in the corner.

Nile shook her head in disbelief. “I can’t believe it,” she breathed out. “It’s beautiful.”

“It reminded me of Joe,” Nicky said simply. 

“If these are your gifts from the past couple hundred years, where are all the older ones?” Nile asked. “I mean, come on, there have to be older ones.”

“Ah, yes. There were, a long time ago, but they’ve all been lost now.”

A second or two passed as Nile processed the information. Her eyes widened in shock. “Lost? What happened?” she exclaimed.

“Well, we had to move around a lot. There were so many wars at the time, we lost a lot of safehouses. And when you are on the run, small gifts like these get left behind.”

She looked genuinely heartbroken at that. It reminded him so much of Joe, centuries ago, the last time they had to abandon what they had thought had been a safe haven in the eastern regions of the continent. At the time, they had been lucky to get away with the clothes on their back and some food supplies, and it was only much later that they had time to process what had been left behind.

Years of little gifts and mementos, some commissioned from local craftsmen, some handcrafted by Joe’s own hands, and always given to him with a kiss or a tender caress, all gone up in smoke.

“It was many years ago,” Nicky said softly. “Besides, we always buy each other new gifts. And the past several hundred years have been very peaceful, so we have managed to more than make up for the ones that have been lost.

“And actually, I won’t be surprised if some of them have actually survived and ended up in a museum somewhere.”

Thankfully, that brought a small smile back to Nile’s lips. But she still seemed troubled by the idea.

“It’s probably silly, right?” she said, finally. “I mean, I guess … they’re just things, right? People are more important.”

He nodded. “That’s true,” he said. He had a feeling that she was holding something back, and for a moment he felt a brief panic. She was still new, still coming to terms with their situation and immortality, and he feared that if he said the wrong thing, it might impact the way she thought about their future.

“What is it, Nile?”

She sighed. “I’m just … do they ever really just become ‘things’ after a while?” She paused and shook her head, as if trying to figure out how to explain the roiling thoughts in her brain. “Like, if it’s been a few centuries, or a thousand years, and you lose these things from your old life … do the memories just fade?”

He shifted slightly. “The memories will always be there,” he said, carefully. “No one can take them from you. The items, the things we value, serve as a reminder to us. Like your cross.” He watched her hand go to it. It had been a gift from her father, he remembered her saying to them.

“Even if … if you weren’t wearing it anymore, you would still remember the significance of it, because you hold it in your heart, yes?” he said, watching her face. “The physical things are important, yes, but it’s the memories that will stay with us always.”

“Do you feel the same way about all the things you’ve lost?” She looked up at him, bright black eyes shining with unspoken feeling.

He had a feeling her question was about more than just the trinkets. He took a deep breath.

“When Joe and I first fell in love,” he began, “we were so happy. This was years after we had stopped fighting and learned to work together. The first gift he ever gave me was a robe, something beautiful and fine, different from the clothes we usually wore.”

Nile’s eyes had softened. He knew she was still curious about him and Joe, and about their time since the Crusades. They had spoken about their collective adventures over the recent centuries, but never really touched upon their earliest years, the main reason being that eventually those stories would lead to Quynh, and they had not spoken of her since that night in Goussainville.

Nicky continued his story. “I remember being so thrilled that he had thought of me, and the next day I went out and bought him a small book of poems. He would read them out loud to me during our travels. I was still learning the language, and it helped.”

He looked down. “After that, at every town we visited, we would buy something for each other. Sometimes it was a jewel, or something new to wear, or another book. There must have been about a hundred of them by the end. I remember we kept them in a saddlebag, and he would complain sometimes about how heavy it was, and I would always tell him to stop buying more. But we never could stop.”

Nile had gone still, listening to his story. She was staring at the inkwell in her hand.

“Eventually,” he began. Well, no use avoiding it. “Eventually, we found Andy and Quynh. Or rather, they found us.”

Nile looked back up at him. He knew she could still see her under the water, drowning. And his own memories of what had happened to her, those many years of searching, were still raw.

“We travelled together for a while, and when we reached the next city, Joe and I gave them gifts, to celebrate. A pair of necklaces. They laughed, and gave us some of the weapons from their pack.” He smiled. “Probably taken from some bandits, I suppose. But they were fine knives, and probably more practical than what we had given to them.”

He paused for a moment, trying to collect his words. “And after another long while, we arrived at the port. We had planned to sail to Greece, to travel further. I remember feeling so excited, looking forward to what would come. I had thought of seeing the rest of the world, perhaps going back to Genoa eventually.

“And halfway through our journey, a storm struck us. The ship was rolling about, and we were terrified it would capsize. A few people were swept overboard. I remember thinking this might be our final end. A punishment perhaps. Maybe we were not meant to cross the ocean.” He shook his head. 

Nile was looking at him, eyes filled with tears. She knew what he was going to say next.

“The crew were shouting at the passengers, ordering us to throw all our extra baggage overboard and lighten the load. I suppose in the moment, our minds were too fixed on survival. We did as they said, throwing out everything we could lay our hands on. It was only afterwards that we realized that we had also thrown over the bag with all our precious things.

“So, the first hundred gifts Joe and I ever gave each other, and the first gifts Andy and Quynh ever gave us, are all at the bottom of the Mediterranean Sea.”

Tears began to spill from Nile’s eyes. “Wow, that’s – that’s sad.”

“I remember crying once I found out. I never realized just how important they were to me. I had given up my old life after meeting Joe, and started my new one with him. So I had looked at those gifts as … a representation of my new existence, I suppose.”

“What happened then?” Nile asked, sniffling.

“Well, Joe held me in his arms. He said to me not to worry, that what was important was that we had each other. And slowly, I realized he was right. And Andy and Quynh, they told us that one of the benefits of having immortality was that there would be ample time to replace the things that were lost.”

He breathed out. “And so that’s what we did. When we reached Greece, the first thing Joe did was buy me new clothes in place of the ones that I had lost. And then we travelled, we fought, we helped people along the way. Maybe one day I will tell you about those adventures.”

The room was quiet around them. The sun had gone down while he was telling his story, and he knew he would have to light the candles soon.

“When we lost Quynh,” he paused. “It almost broke us. Andy still wears her amulet around her neck, and I have always wondered, what if I still had those knives she gave us at the beginning?

“But in the end, no one can take away my memories of her. Her laugh, her smile, the way she would fight. She lives in my memory, as long as I live. And that is worth more to me than any little gift she could have given me.”

He looked her in the eyes. “And you, little sister, you will make your own new memories, to join the ones that currently live in your heart.”

Her face crumpled, and she looked down, biting her lip. He reached his arms out and enveloped her, feeling her hug him back. For a moment, time stilled, as they held each other in the quiet serenity of the safehouse.

He wasn’t sure if he had given her the answer she wanted to hear, but it was enough for him that she had an answer for the moment. His mind flashed back to Booker, to the memory of him standing alone by the river in London.

 _When the time comes, we will talk to him again_ , he thought to himself, as he rubbed his hand along Nile’s back. _We will have time to make things right again_. 

Suddenly, he heard the sound of a car driving up the gravel path just outside the house. Gently, he and Nile pulled apart. Her tears had dried, and her mouth curled up in a small smile.

“That must be Andy and Joe,” she said.

“Well, let’s go greet them. And Joe can tell you stories about the rest of the items in here while I go make dinner.” Already they could hear car doors shutting, and Joe’s laughter just outside the door, responding to something Andy was saying.

She gave a short laugh. “That sounds great.” They both stood up together. “And don’t think I forgot about what you said when you were talking about Versailles. I want to hear all about your little espionage mission.”

“It wasn’t anything like that!” he protested, laughing. He held out his hand to her and she clasped it tightly in hers as they walked towards the door.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, here it is, my first fic in 20 years. It wasn't easy getting back in the saddle, but I want to thank all the wonderful writers of this fandom for being so inspiring and making me want to write again in the first place. 
> 
> And especially thanks to the people of the Top!Joe Discord for being so encouraging and lovely, and for organizing this event that finally made me get off my butt. The initial idea pretty much took on a life of its own halfway through, and it ended being a bit more maudlin than I wanted, and one focused more on platonic love as opposed to romantic love. But I'm happy I made the first step.
> 
> Sadly, not much Joe here since it ended up being a Nicky-Nile centric fic, but I promise you that my next fic will contain a whole lotta Joe&Nicky.


End file.
